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24 AFLOAT.com.au March 2017
We hear the same complaint from
rank-and-file offshore skippers
after the Hobart race every year.
If the television coverage and newspapers
were any guide (they say), then the annual
dash South was a contest between four
100-foot supermaxis. Everyone else was
just making up the numbers.
That impression was amplified when,
a few days after the race, Rolex took
out prominent display advertising to
congratulate Perpetual Loyal on being
“ the winners” – and made no mention
whatsoever of the actual IRC handicap
winner.
But it’s misleading to lump all
the blame for this false emphasis on
the Channel Seven producers or our
newspaper editors. In any sporting contest
the fight for the lead is where major
attention naturally falls, and the media will
always tend to follow what they believe to
be popular interest.
And perhaps ’twas ever thus. In the
1950s, while the Livingston brothers
chased line honours in Kurrewa IV, the
Halvorsens had their sights set on the
handicap prize with Solveig and Anitra.
But the intense concentration on
the supermaxi drag race to the virtual
exclusion of all other competitors is a
relatively new development. These days
even a keen follower of offshore racing
struggles to remember who was really the
overall winner of the Sydney-Hobart – but
everyone knows about Comanche, Wild Oats
and Loyal.
I would have no issue with this
situation if all yachts in the fleet were
competing on genuinely equal terms, but
they aren’t.
Indeed, to my mind, the supermaxis
(and their shorter imitations) should not
be accepted as entries in the race as we
know it. They are certainly very exciting
boats, but they should be racing against
each other – like with like – and not against
the smaller conventional yachts over whom
they hold immense advantages.
This is, of course, a highly provocative
suggestion that won’t be welcomed by the
CYCA, Rolex or the owners and sponsors
of the more prominent line-honours
contenders. But I believe it’s an argument
that at least deserves a serious hearing.
The core problem is the changes to our
rules that allowed the use of stored power
and moveable ballast. Anyone outside the
world of yachting is astonished to learn
that the big boats they so admire have
to keep an engine running all the way to
Hobart to deliver power to their winches,
cant the keel and move water ballast
around the boat.
To me, the sport of ocean racing is a
unique test of skill, strength, stamina and
tactics. It should not be a contest between
people pushing buttons.
Technologyhasitsplace. Improvements
in hull design, rigs, sails and electronics are
all welcome but they should not supplant
or subvert the basic physical elements of
fair competition.
If a boat cannot be properly sailed
using muscle power alone then it is (at
least in my contention) actually a motor-
sailer and should not be competing against
conventional yachts.
“Oh, that horse has long since bolted,”
say the pragmatists. “Get with the program.
They changed the rules more than a decade
ago, so everyone should just accept it.”
In one sense that is undeniable. Stored
power and moveable ballast are here to
stay, or at least until they are superseded
by some new technology that delivers
even greater power-to-weight benefits.
The authorities that govern ocean racing
and stage the major events are not about
to return to their old rules.
MAN v. MACHINE:
are the supermaxis fair?
David Salter makes the
case for a review of our
offshore racing rules
Machine power – maxis now carry huge sail areas that humans alone could not handle.